an idea for a fic i might make if it doesn't get disowned by everyone
by Nazareth Rose
Summary: tl;dr: spinel goes oof, human/gem relations get fucked, the poison does a lot of wacky things to convert gems to humans and vice versa, a war begins, the gem race starts over.


Consider this a chapter from a history book I guess.

This was inspired by a lot of things, but mainly inspired by me researching Ocean City, MD (which is eerily close to Beach City and eerily close to where Sugar grew up) since I went there a few years ago and spent my childhood summers. But here we go.  
note: i'm a noob and was only a little exposed to steven universe other than the movie because of me being trapped watching cartoon network because of my little sister.

Steven is now eighteen and ready to marry Connie and move out of his parents' place, although he swears never to forget his Gem heritage. Just then, Spinel comes back down using the lightpad the Diamonds have.

NOTE: 1 SECOND IN THE DIAMOND WORLD=1 DAY IN THE HUMAN WORLD, meaning Spinel would have only been gone for about 13 minutes.

She claims she wanted to go back to say one last goodbye. She notices how much time would pass in the human world without the Diamonds even giving her a second thought and decides to stay for 6 months, realizing she needs to repair her relationships with the other characters. During that time, she becomes closer with all the characters, but most of all with Pearl, who has now developed a protective instinct over her and considers her just as much of her "child" as Steven is. So she's accepted as a temporary member of the Universe family as Steven's "sister" and as Greg's "daughter" that he's always wanted.

Meanwhile, in one of the more overlooked suburbian neighborhoods in Beach City, the injector left a trail of its poison on one of the cul-de-sacs…right in the only area where it's legal for carriers to deliver newspapers. This has caused a man named George Handley, who lives in that street, to not have any current issues of his newspaper. In fact, the last issue of the paper was when Spinel was on Earth and how it basically portrayed her as pure evil. Since George is quite the gem extremist/human supremacist, thinking they're out to destroy humanity. And he also has a pistil, well… yeah.

Slowly, tensions grow in between the Gems and the humans, culminating one day with Steven getting into a scuffle in one of the town alleyways and coming home very much hurt.

One day, Pearl and Spinel go to the children's theatre to watch one of their plays, with Greg and Steven being gone for a music gig. Unbeknownst to them, George is also coming to see his 9-year-old daughter Delaney and her 11-year-old boyfriend Ken. Once George sees the duo, he pulls you-know-what out of his pocket and fires away. Pearl shields Spinel, but not…quite.

In fact, the poison did more than just destroy organic matter. It cancels it out, yes, but it also replaces it with crystalline matter, aimed to both destroy humans and turn them into half or full Gems. It does the opposite with the Gems, causing them to possess more and more human traits, some of which include dying in human ways and retaining a bodily form after their Gems shatter.

It takes a few seconds for Pearl to even realize Spinel is hurt, and even when she does, with the help of a completely unhelpful human crowd, she doesn't know anything she can do but calm Spinel down until her gem shatters. *cue sad harmonica music prisoners in movies play*

George is completely devastated and remorseful, having heard Spinel's crying, which sounds like a child. He tells Pearl about how he's a father himself, and Pearl says how that "makes him even more sick" before she punches him in the face and knocks him out. Pearl tells everyone what happened. They bury Spinel near Rose's Fountain. Afterwards, they spend time with the Handley family and with Ken, meeting George's wife Margaret (iT mEaNs PeArL sEe WhAt I dId ThEre).

One day, the Diamonds start to frantically call Earth every second, which translates into once every 2 or 3 days. Each time, they offer a different explanation, but time's running out. Eventually, they bring George, who fabricates what happened and makes himself look like the hero. Despite everyone else trying to tell the Diamonds this, they say they'd much rather believe the words of a "humble father" instead of any of the rest of them. (poor greg)

The Gems determine the humans are getting dangerous and that they need to address this. Steven is the representative, but once a mob of humans attack, the Gems attack back. The United States interprets this as a declaration of war.

…

It's now been 5 years since the war started. It's been very organized- mostly made up of volunteers, with battles going on in uninhabited places. High tensions still exist between the Gems and the humans, but it dies down to a topic that people talk about when they're bored. No, nobody important died, although Steven's grown to be a handsome 23-year-old and looking suspiciously like Steg. We now go back to Rosanna, who is now 14, and Ken, who is now 16. During science class one day, Rosanna discovers traces of the poison (nicknamed "gobbledy goopy goo") in the schoolyard, and looking under a microscope using a cheek swab, they discover it's replacing the cells with a mixture of microscopic crystals and alien-looking fluid. A kid volunteers to POUR the rest of the poison on his arm, and it mutates into a Gem-ish arm.

Ken realizes that they've discovered a major advantage in the war, and so they spend the next few months teaming up with the Steven Universe gang and trying to find a way to keep the Gems going as a failsafe in case the Gems don't make it to the planets they want to migrate to. So they purposefully inject themselves with poison until they turn half-Gem. Along the way, they meet new friends, lose new friends, and have a tone of character development. The surviving Gems all leave Earth, and Ken and Rosanna use the light pad once more to go to the most isolated, the smallest, the most remote planet in all the galaxy: the Garden.

They form a network of wires around the planet to deliver a paralyzing electric shock to anyone should they dare to step on the light pad, trapping themselves in the planet for the rest of their lives out of fear the cycle will start all over again if they do. Using a juice extracted from the dead forget-me-nots that turns out to be where the poison originated the whole time, they take out the Gem parts from them and create two Gem creatures that resemble them both in appearance and action. Ken and Rosanna discover how to use the poison to bring back the plants, surprisingly, and grow their own food, living the rest of their days there and dismantling the electric wires when they reach old age.

Meanwhile, all the Steven Universe characters are making a life away from Earth on a nearby planet, without any humans, and build a Homeworld-like planet. Steven and Connie settle down and have children there, and the rest of the Gems live happily and peacefully.

and all of this because a newspaper carrier was late.

Also: the Diamonds built the injector, it being a machine recycled from the first war. They were also the ones who discovered the poison's use and sent Spinel to Earth as an attempt for them to build a Gem army there, offering Spinel "the perfect revenge." Ah, well.


End file.
